Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Ionic

9.3K
8.4K
+ 1
1.8K
Xamarin

1.3K
1.5K
+ 1
785
Add tool

Ionic vs Xamarin: What are the differences?

Developers describe Ionic as "A beautiful front-end framework for developing cross-platform apps with web technologies like Angular and React". Free and open source, Ionic offers a library of mobile and desktop-optimized HTML, CSS and JS components for building highly interactive apps. Use with Angular, React, Vue, or plain JavaScript. On the other hand, Xamarin is detailed as "Create iOS, Android and Mac apps in C#". Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Ionic and Xamarin can be primarily classified as "Cross-Platform Mobile Development" tools.

Some of the features offered by Ionic are:

  • Performance obsessed
  • Utilizes Angular and React
  • Native focused

On the other hand, Xamarin provides the following key features:

  • Cross-platform development- Thinking about supporting iOS, Android, Mac and Windows? Xamarin allows you to write it all in C#.
  • Reuse existing code- Use your favorite .NET libraries in Xamarin apps. Easily use third-party native libraries and frameworks.
  • Discover as you type- Explore APIs as you type with code autocompletion.

"Allows for rapid prototyping", "Hybrid mobile" and "It's angularjs" are the key factors why developers consider Ionic; whereas "Power of c# on mobile devices", "Native apps with native ui controls" and "Native performance" are the primary reasons why Xamarin is favored.

Ionic is an open source tool with 38.4K GitHub stars and 13.1K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Ionic's open source repository on GitHub.

Sellsuki, Edify, and eTobb are some of the popular companies that use Ionic, whereas Xamarin is used by Rdio, Olo, and Rumble. Ionic has a broader approval, being mentioned in 392 company stacks & 350 developers stacks; compared to Xamarin, which is listed in 74 company stacks and 65 developer stacks.

Advice on Ionic and Xamarin

I would like to evaluate a good option to migrate an existing WordPress portal, where the customer can continue to access the news and also have a private area where they can receive personalised information and can demand or interact with the company and also have mobile support on both iOS and Android.

Currently the whole back system is in SAP and my main doubts are;

  • Best solution for the web portal that can generate content and can render well in the mobile solution.
  • Best option for the mobile implementation of the same portal and its private area ( React Native?)
See more
Replies (2)
Recommends

I think that React Native or Vue Native is the best choice for modern cross-platform mobile applications. And both of these frameworks have a large community. Apache Cordova was the pioneer in this way. We used it in projects in 2014. Ionic is also an old tool and in 2014 it was based at Apache Cordova. I don't think that it has so a big community like React Native or Vue Native.

For a web system, React or Vue is a good and modern choice too.

See more
Brad Jones
CTO/founder at Meet Kinksters · | 2 upvotes · 14.5K views
Recommends

No shade on the hard work of/on Ionic and Cordova over the years, but they are not the future and you will be going down a dead-end for maintainability going forward. React Native is an excellent bridge for any pre-existing JavaScript/TypeScript skills you might already have from web development.

Flutter is worth considering as a close second but I would recommend RN for the above reasons. Also consider using Expo to ease your build process.

See more
Bhupendra Madhu
Web Developer at Ecombooks · | 8 upvotes · 515.3K views
Needs advice
on
FlutterFlutterReact NativeReact Native
and
XamarinXamarin

I want to learn cross-platform application frameworks like React Native, Flutter, Xamarin, or Ionic, and I'm a web developer. I can learn other programming languages as well. But I'm confused about what to learn, which framework is best, and which framework will last long as the application grows further into complexity.

See more
Replies (3)
Myo Win
CTO at Myanmar Web Designer (MWD) Co., Ltd. · | 5 upvotes · 36.3K views
Recommends

Flutter is the best one. If you are a new comer in mobile app development, choose Flutter.

But if you have strong experience in JavaScript and you have a lot of JS websites that you want to develop into mobile apps, choose React Native.

Ionic also has its strong points such as a lot of prebuilt components for different platforms and minimal dev environment requirement (you only need a browser).

See more
Recommends

React Native has a very rich ecosystem and if you're already a web developer, the skills that you already possess will transfer over very well. React is the second most popular web framework according to Stack Overlow's 2022 Developer Survey. No one framework is the 'best' as they all serve different purposes and have different use cases. If you're looking to pick up something popular, I would recommend React Native.

See more
Kubilay Cagri Yildirim
Senior System Architect at Profelis Bilisim ve Danismanlik · | 1 upvotes · 4K views
Recommends

The easiest and fastest for you right now is React Native. I dont know about the Xamarin but I dont like microsoft.

See more
Needs advice
on
IonicIonicPhoneGapPhoneGap
and
React NativeReact Native

Looking for some advice: we are planning to create a hybrid app for both iOS and Android; this app will consume a REST API. We are looking for a tool for this development with the following attributes:

  • Shallow learning curve; easiness to adopt (all team is new into mobile development, with diverse backgrounds: Java, Python & AngularJS),

  • Easiness to test (we discarded Angular-based tools already: creating a unit test in Angular we considered time-consuming and low value. At this point of the project, we cannot afford UI testing with Selenium/Appium based tools).

  • So far, we are not considering any specific capability of the device. Still, in the mid/long term, we would require the usage of GPS (geolocalization) and accelerometer (not sure if it's possible to use it from a hybrid app). Suggest any other tool if you wish.

See more
Replies (4)
Alcides Costa
CEO, Co-founder at inPlace · | 5 upvotes · 59.1K views
Recommends
on
KivyKivy

If your team has a strong background in Python and you want to release some prototype soon, you could try Python and Kivy. Kivy is an open-source, cross-platform Python framework for rapid development of mobile GUIs. It supports both iOS and Android. I have passed a similar situation recently: to start a mobile app with no background in mobile development. Kivy saved me a lot of time. I could develop a prototype and release it faster than I thoght.

See more
Frederico Bezerra
Recommends
on
ExpoExpoReact NativeReact Native

To be honest , You need to think these points :

  • Developer Experience

  • Tooling

  • Maintainability

My vote for now is going with React Native with Expo , using Typescript...

With this stack You could follow some patterns and principle that the Java and python programmers are familiar with.

Typescript is a javascript Superset that you can follow Procedural , Functional and OOP approaches and an easy learning curve.

With Expo you need to concern only with the shared layer (Typescript) and the Native ones will be expo responsibility.

Please check Expo.com and try to get started using typescript.

Good performance and with EAS (paid plan) you can create a full CI CD pipeline for your app connected to the stores(Apple and Android).

See more
Recommends
on
CapacitorCapacitorIonicIonic

If you already know how to build web apps, give Capacitor a try. You can think of it like "electron for mobile" in that you can build a web app but access native functionality. Pair it with Ionic if you want a UI kit that is optimized for mobile, or build your own UI from scratch.

A bonus to Capacitor is your app will run without modification on the web as a PWA, iOS, Android, and more.

See more
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

Other tools have very slow performance. They are usually selected because someone on the team likes Angular, but your customers won't care what framework you're using. They'll just know the app is slow.

See more
Saber Hosney
Senior software engineer at Shortcut · | 7 upvotes · 267.6K views
Needs advice
on
FlutterFlutterIonicIonic
and
React NativeReact Native

Greetings!

I have been searching lately for frameworks to build mobile apps.

We are trying to make something like a quiz app as a way for customers to contact us. I considered Ionic and React Native because we use JavaScript most of the time in websites, e.g., Vue.js/Nuxt.js. But Flutter seems a decent choice as well, especially since you can use Android/iOS-like components. We are looking for something that works in the long term, something that's time and cost-effective, especially when paired with backend services like Firebase or a GraphQL server. I would like to know your opinions and recommendations. Thank you!

See more
Replies (5)
Devon Ray
Software Engineer at Djinn Digital LTD · | 14 upvotes · 64.9K views
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

I think in the long term Flutter would be your best bet, I work with both flutter and react native daily and I am constantly finding reasons why flutter is better then RN, some general things I've found with flutter are the following:

  • User base is growing massively and a lot of companies are switching over to flutter
  • Performance is much better than React, both usage and compile times.
  • Managing framework updates with Flutter is a breeze and not so great with React.
See more
Krunal Shah
Full Stack Developer at Infynno Solutions · | 8 upvotes · 66.4K views
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

I have been exploring the Flutter lately it's good but if I am building something which is really huge then I will definitely use React Native for these reasons

  1. React Native is used by so many big companies so there are libraries for everything you need.
  2. As of now React Native community is bigger and more active than Flutter so if you're stuck anywhere it will be easy to get help or just find a solution from stack overflow.
  3. Since you're already working on JS you wouldn't need to learn anything new and you can focus on building your product.

The question you should be asking yourself Do I want to spend my time learning a new framework and then build the product or should I just building the product with the framework I know.

See more
Marek Kapusta-Ognicki
Senior Fullstack Dev/Lead at Dataminers · | 4 upvotes · 23.3K views
Recommends
on
CapacitorCapacitor

Capacitor is a perfect tool for creating hybrid apps with any of the leading JS framework, so you don't have to worry about switching from JS to anything else. It also has a great ecosystem, as well as the native functions bridge plugins, most of them require zero-to-minimum effort to set them up. Unlike in React Native/Vue Native, you are not limited to specific components or logic, you are also free to choose any fitting UI kit, and the final product looks and behaves exactly the same regardless of the platform.

See more
Jake Shapley
Application Developer at Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife · | 4 upvotes · 27.1K views
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

I would definitely go with Flutter. I have been writing native apps in iOS (Objective-C/Swift) and Android (Java/Kotlin) for over 6 years. For public-facing apps, we have generally written and maintained 3 code bases (iOS, Android, Web), so we have tried cross-platform solutions, including Ionic and React Native. React Native was definitely better than Ionic, but still lagged significantly behind native, in terms of performance. Flutter is a game-changer. I have been tasked with writing a public-facing app to help users identify fish species. It is backed with AWS Amplify (AppSync/GraphQL). I was able to write a platform-aware UI, with native-looking elements in less time than it would have taken me to write it natively for a single platform. It looks like with just a few UI and backend tweaks, we will also be able to deploy it for Web. I haven't run tests to confirm, but performance appears to be at least as good as native. Here are some additional benefits when using Flutter/Dart with VSCode:

  • easy to set up and start coding
  • easy to integrate/manage dependencies
  • hot reload across multiple devices, on save
  • auto-formatting
  • quick-fix suggestions for syntax, etc. errors
See more
Recommends
on
CapacitorCapacitorIonicIonic

I'll second the recommendation to check out Capacitor, optionally with Ionic. Capacitor provides a sort of "electron for mobile" that runs web apps on iOS, Android, Desktop, and as a PWA on the web, giving you access to the full native functionality on each platform through plugins or custom native code. Ionic then provides a native-quality UI layer and opinionated developer experience that ultimately uses Capacitor under the hood.

Sounds like your team already has a lot of web experience and existing web code, so Capacitor on its own or with Ionic would be a great choice since it's a standard web environment and can run any JavaScript app.

See more
William Miller
CEO at Stealth Startup · | 7 upvotes · 433K views
Needs advice
on
PyQtPyQtReact NativeReact Native
and
XamarinXamarin

We are developing an AWS IoT app for large boats. The IoT devices have sensors all over the boat for engine oil pressure, position, water depth, fuel level, crew location, etc. When the boat has internet, we interact with AWS cloud using lambda and Amazon DynamoDB. When the boat is offshore, the captain and crew still need normal and emergency alerts and real-time sensor information. The crew might have an Android or IoS phone or a Windows or macOS PC to receive alerts and interact with sensors. We may use the AWS GreenGrasss edge computing solution and either MQTT or HTML for that function.

Question: We want to develop a cross-platform client to run on Windows, Mac, Android, IOS, and possibly Linux. We are primarily Python programmers, so PyQt or Kivy are options for us, but we have heard good things about React Native, Flutter, Xamarin, and others. We think an AWS Greengrass core on an RPI4 could communicate to the client with MQTT or a local webserver with a client web interface.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

See more
Replies (2)
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

I don't know much about Xamarin but I know about PyQt and React Native.

However, I don't recommend PyQt because the apps made using PyQt are not that suitable for mobile apps. If you take a look at the PyQt interface, you will be able to see that the features are more of a desktop apps kind.

React Native uses JavaScript. React Native is immensely flexible in upgrading your apps because it allows you to formulate your app code into independent blocks.

In Xamarin, you have to write the code in .NET . The best thing about Xamarin is, that it extends the.NET developer platform with tools and libraries specifically for building apps for Android, iOS, tvOS, watchOS, macOS, and Windows

While the best choice for you depends on various factors but React Native app development is a promising overall choice. In today’s scenario, React Native has steady growth, flawless code structure, and brilliant and large community support. We suggest you go for React Native for your next project owing to its outstanding support from developers, easy availability, and cost-effectiveness.

See more
Saamer Mansoor
Founder at The First Prototype · | 4 upvotes · 45.3K views

It seems like your app is not really using any native functionality on the phone. I have experience with cross platform iOS & Android development. They are all really good tools! Xamarin (all the project on the website portfolio I attached) is awesome for accessing native functionality (NFC, Sensors, Bluetooth, etc), and I have built apps that have millions of downloads, some that hit Top 5 on Utilities, another that hit Top 50 in Finances. You just have to look at what your application intent is, it seems like it's just to read and post data. For that they are all pretty good, but you should also look into Ionic which may serve the same purpose

See more
Needs advice
on
FlutterFlutterIonicIonic
and
React NativeReact Native

Hi, we are an early startup (with an iPOC prototype) but need to get started on our MVP, and our tech developers in India recommended a hybrid, and they use Ionic, then we spoke with a software company in the US and he recommended Flutter or React Native. Any advice or input for us on the differences between these? Our app will need Bluetooth GPS for "near me" and social media sharing reviews capability, and also link on the backend with businesses. Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

See more
Replies (6)
Dario Alves
Arquiteto de Software at Senior sistemas · | 2 upvotes · 492K views
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

Maturity, Community, Facility, Libs React Native is the principal platform of mobile cross-platform development today, Flutter is it's a promise.

See more
Ahmad Khan
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

I would never recommend you to go with Ionic, Because of the User experience it provides is subpar. Flutter is most promising, Can be easily used to develop great user experience in no time. React native is also good, but it's phasing out in my opinion, while Ionic has already phased out. Flutter also provides great developer experience, resulting in fast and productive developers. I would have to press hard to think of a CON about flutter when recommending it for your needs.

See more
Recommends
on
IonicIonic
at

I don‘t have practical experience with flutter but between ionic and react native I‘d say both a perfectly viable options and we have used both for a number of production apps. We normally go with ionic on capacitor because we build a lot of pwa/web apps so we can use the same code for all. We don‘t use much of ionic elements, we do most styles on our own.

The comments that the user experience is bad I cannot agree with. A well designed and developed ionic apo can hardly be distinguished from a native app. But obviously that depends also on the usecase and type of app.

I hope this helps

See more
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

Flutter is built on DART which is written in GO. GO compiles to binary. Hence is faster than any java based framework. It provides superior performance and has a simplified UI process for designing apps.

See more
Kevin Lücke
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

It depends also on your team skills. Flutter is fast to learn, fast to develop with and the performance is much better in comparison to React. If your team is already highly skilled in React Native it could be the better option - if not Flutter is my 100% recommendation. We rapidly prototype and deliver MVPs with Flutter since two years.

See more
Nicolas Kovacs
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

Even if React Native is older (I didn't say mature) you should go for Flutter, It's works really well and the developer experience is great (auto-completion, plugin etc). I spent years with React Native and now I am using Flutter and I don't regret It. Even if you have to learn a new language, It's pretty simple even more If you know some OOP, Java and Javascript ES6 syntax in some case. One other advantage is the facility to design app in Flutter, you have widgets for everything and you can adapt any design made by your designer. For example you can't make a simple custom box shadow with React-Native ...

See more
Alexis Poveda
Needs advice
on
ElectronElectronFlutterFlutter
and
IonicIonic

Hi! I have to develop a software solution for a youth church group, for my graduation project. In the first meeting that I have with the coordinators, they did not have a clear idea of what they want. The biggest problem they have is the attendance control, they do it manually and that causes errors.

I was thinking of developing an Android app in Android Studio because that is the tool I master, but a friend told me that I consider using a tool that builds for iOS, Android and web. I have like 6 months. I own a MacBookAir but I do not know Swift (for iOS). I am familiar with MySQL, PHP, Apache, JSP,HTML,CSS.

Summary: What tool can I use that is easy to learn and easy to scale?

See more
Replies (5)
Recommends
on
IonicIonic

It's probably not relevant anymore, but I think Ionic with Angular as the frontend is the right choice. For IDE I would choose Visual Studio Code. You can just create a basic web application with responsive design, which is already included if you are going to use Ionic components with Material Design to create your app. You don't need to know Swift, you don't even have to create mobile apps, just create a responsive (Ionic already is) web app, or PWA. Upon browsing your website from a mobile device for example using google chrome, you will be prompted to create a shortcut of the website in your mobile phone. After you do this, there will be an icon in your phone that looks like an icon to launch an app, it will launch your website in full screen mode - for the user's perspective it will look like he is using a native app. Access https://ionicframework.com/docs/angular/pwa from your android chrome browser, go to tab options (3 vertical dots), click on Add to Home screen. When you launch the website from the shortcut, you'll see that it behaves and looks like a native app.

See more
Recommends
on
IonicIonic

I think you should chose between Flutter and Ionic. With those two options, the main question is about graphs and performance. Are they really important for your application? If the answer is yes, your tool is Flutter but, if the answer is that you need an easy tool to create an app with some basic components I would choose Ionic. You have a library with lots of components that you can use and they have native UI by default (for Android and iOS).

You will find more support if you use Ionic with Angular as frontend framework (you have the option to use Vue or React but this is a new feature for Ionic and I think there are more difficult to learn than Angular).

You can develop and debug the majority of features on PC (I don't know if that is possible with Flutter). And when you will finish the app, create iOS and Android versions is simple.

See more
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

Flutter is easy to use and easy to understand. Once you have completed the android platform, you can easily build it to ios, Web or desktop on a single code base.

See more
Carlos Esteban Lopez Jaramillo
Recommends
on
IonicIonic
  1. Electron is for desktop apps, so not useful for you.
  2. Flutter has better performance, but Ionic is decent as well, I would use Ionic unless you're making a game or graphic-intensive app.
  3. Ionic is more flexible since you have the whole NPM ecosystem available, while flutter is more recent, thus libraries for it are less in quantity and battle-tested than the ones in NPM.
  4. Ionic 4 introduced CSS variables, which improved immensely the theming process for the app, which was the hardest issue Ionic development had.
  5. Ionic has extended to many frameworks so it's compatible with Angular and React frameworks, meaning more flexibility, personally I would recommend Ionic with Angular over React since it's more suited to enterprise-level apps.
See more
Alejandro Ulate Fallas
Mobile Developer at Build SRL · | 2 upvotes · 300.3K views
Recommends
on
IonicIonic

Hi there. So Electron embeds everything in a webview, which means that what you would have to develop would be a Node project most probably. Ionic does the same (kindof but won't bore you with specifics) but it does it much more efficiently. Usually you do Ionic apps with JS frameworks like Angular or React (this one recently added). Flutter on the other hand does native apps, it does it really good but it's support for Web is in beta and it's relatively simple to setup if you already know the SDK and the environment.

My recommendation would be that you do your app using Angular/Ionic if you reaaally need the multi-platform environment and there's different reasons in this case:

  • Since it's a graduation project you need it to be as simple as it can be and adding a new technology adds to the learning curve.
  • Flutter is great if you have different complex UI or if you have specific performance needs that require native support and in your case it does not seem like you need that.
  • Flutter is also an incredibly powerful tool but it's learning curve might be tricky if you have not developed native apps before so I wouldn't recommend you start off like this if you have time sensitive projects like a graduation project. It does have great docs and an awesome community but I'd suggest you stick as close to what you know as you can.
  • Ionic/Angular uses Typescript (a type javascript wrapper) and Angular (JS framework) so you will have to learn a little bit but if you already know HTML, CSS and Javascript you won't have that much of a hard time. Also there's quite a lot in terms of documentation and tooling already tested around this combination.
  • Ionic/Angular has a really good CLI that helps you stick to the architecture they recommend so you wouldn't have to worry about it that much.
  • Ionic/Angular helps you test either locally in the web browser as well as your devices which is in the end what you want if you are looking for a multi-platform system. Flutter also does this but is not quite in a stable state (yet!).

Anyway, in the end, if you go for the multi-platform suggestion I think, because of time you would be better off with Ionic. If you decide that you don't need that as of right now (which is fine as well) you can start with just the Android app and plan on the different things you might eventually need like a website or other different stuff. Cheers!

See more
Decisions about Ionic and Xamarin

I wanted to develop a student app that possibly could be used by many teams (students from other schools)

I chose Ionic, because:

  • single codebase: previously, we used React Native for Android and Angular for web/PWA, which was troublesome

  • portability: runs on PWA (which is important, because iOS license is too expensive for school app), web, Android iOS (+ others, if needed)

  • full use of web technologies: Next.js, Tailwind, React in this example (in oppose to Flutter/Java/Kotlin)

  • stability and maintainability: low-entry level due to basic web technologies without new syntax (in oppose to React Native and Flutter), web is really stable and won't lose support (which doesn't have to be true with Flutter/Dart)

See more
James Bender
Lead Application Architect at TekPartners · | 5 upvotes · 50.1K views

I've yet to see a non-native application that I felt performed as well and/or provided the same user experience with Cordova/PhoneGap/Xamarin. Frankly, at best they all seemed like underpowered web applications deployed to a sandbox that ran on a phone. They didn't feel "slick" or "mobile-first" and in some cases the performance was unacceptable. At previous companies, we built a few of these apps at the client's insistence, and in every case, they re-engaged us about 18 months later to re-write the app(s) natively.

We are doing some research on React Native and Flutter, but I am not yet convinced that they can provide the same level of experience and performance as native, though I am trying to keep an open mind.

See more
Gabor Galazzo

As a startup, we need the maximum flexibility and the ability to reach our customers in a more suitable way. So a hybrid application approach is the best because it allows you to develop a cross-platform application in a unique codebase. The choice behind Ionic is Angular, I think that angular is the best framework to develop a complex application that needs a lot of service interaction, its modularity forces you (the developer) to write the code in the correct way, so it can be maintainable and reusable.

See more
Pierre Canthelou
Responsable app mobile at Le Point · | 5 upvotes · 116.8K views

I've made 6 professional/business applications with React Native before choosing Flutter/Dart for the new version of WinMinuteConso (historical in Ionic...). Multi Platform is far more stable, Dart is far more powerful, the whole process is really better... It is just hard to find the proper software architecture...

See more
Thuan Nguyen
FE Lead at SOLID ENGINEER · | 5 upvotes · 616.9K views
  • Javascripts is the most populated language in the world.
  • Easy to learn & deployed production
  • Fast development
  • Strong community
  • Completed Documents
  • Native performance with lower RAM used.
  • Easy to handle native issues by using native code like Java / Objective C
  • Powered by Facebook.
See more
awesomebanana2018
Chose
FlutterFlutter
over
IonicIonic

While with Ionic it is possible to make mobile applications with only web technologies, Flutter is more performant and is easy to use if you are willing to learn Dart, which is a fun language. Plus, it has awesome documentation and, while its ecosystem isn't near as big as JavaScript's is, it has a good package manager called Pub and its packages are generally high quality.

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of Ionic
Pros of Xamarin
  • 248
    Allows for rapid prototyping
  • 228
    Hybrid mobile
  • 208
    It's angularjs
  • 186
    Free
  • 179
    It's javascript, html, and css
  • 109
    Ui and theming
  • 78
    Great designs
  • 74
    Mv* pattern
  • 71
    Reuse frontend devs on mobile
  • 65
    Extensibility
  • 31
    Great community
  • 29
    Open source
  • 23
    Responsive design
  • 21
    Good cli
  • 14
    So easy to use
  • 13
    Angularjs-based
  • 13
    Beautifully designed
  • 12
    Widgets
  • 11
    Allows for rapid prototyping, hybrid mobile
  • 11
    Typescript
  • 10
    Quick prototyping, amazing community
  • 10
    Easy setup
  • 8
    Angular2 support
  • 7
    Fast, easy, free
  • 7
    Because of the productivity and easy for development
  • 7
    Base on angular
  • 7
    So much thought behind what developers actually need
  • 6
    Super fast, their dev team is amazingly passionate
  • 6
    Easy to use
  • 6
    It's Angular
  • 4
    UI is awesome
  • 4
    Hot deploy
  • 3
    Material design support using theme
  • 3
    Amazing support
  • 3
    It's the future
  • 3
    Angular
  • 3
    Allow for rapid prototyping
  • 3
    Easy setup, development and testing
  • 3
    Ionic creator
  • 2
    User Friendly
  • 2
    It's angular js
  • 2
    Complete package
  • 2
    Simple & Fast
  • 2
    Fastest growing mobile app framework
  • 2
    Best Support and Community
  • 2
    Material Design By Default
  • 2
    Cross platform
  • 2
    Documentation
  • 2
    Because I can use my existing web devloper skills
  • 2
    Removes 300ms delay in mobile browsers
  • 1
    Responsive
  • 1
    Native access
  • 1
    Typescript support
  • 1
    Ionic conect codeigniter
  • 1
    Fast Prototyping
  • 1
    All Trending Stack
  • 121
    Power of c# on mobile devices
  • 81
    Native performance
  • 79
    Native apps with native ui controls
  • 73
    No javascript - truely compiled code
  • 67
    Sharing more than 90% of code over all platforms
  • 45
    Ability to leverage visual studio
  • 44
    Mvvm pattern
  • 44
    Many great c# libraries
  • 36
    Amazing support
  • 34
    Powerful platform for .net developers
  • 19
    GUI Native look and Feel
  • 16
    Nuget package manager
  • 12
    Free
  • 9
    Backed by Microsoft
  • 9
    Enables code reuse on server
  • 8
    Faster Development
  • 7
    Use of third-party .NET libraries
  • 7
    It's free since Apr 2016
  • 7
    Best performance than other cross-platform
  • 7
    Easy Debug and Trace
  • 7
    Open Source
  • 6
    Mac IDE (Xamarin Studio)
  • 6
    Xamarin.forms is the best, it's amazing
  • 5
    That just work for every scenario
  • 5
    C# mult paradigm language
  • 5
    Power of C#, no javascript, visual studio
  • 4
    Great docs
  • 4
    Compatible to develop Hybrid apps
  • 4
    Microsoft stack
  • 4
    Microsoft backed
  • 3
    Well Designed
  • 3
    Small learning curve for Mobile developers
  • 2
    Ionic
  • 2
    Ability to leverage legacy C and C++

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Ionic
Cons of Xamarin
  • 20
    Not suitable for high performance or UI intensive apps
  • 15
    Not meant for game development
  • 2
    Not a native app
  • 9
    Build times
  • 5
    Visual Studio
  • 4
    Price
  • 3
    Complexity
  • 3
    Scalability
  • 2
    Nuget
  • 2
    Maturity
  • 2
    Build Tools
  • 2
    Support
  • 0
    Maturidade
  • 0
    Performance

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is Ionic?

Free and open source, Ionic offers a library of mobile and desktop-optimized HTML, CSS and JS components for building highly interactive apps. Use with Angular, React, Vue, or plain JavaScript.

What is Xamarin?

Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Ionic?
What companies use Xamarin?
See which teams inside your own company are using Ionic or Xamarin.
Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with Ionic?
What tools integrate with Xamarin?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

What are some alternatives to Ionic and Xamarin?
PhoneGap
PhoneGap is a web platform that exposes native mobile device apis and data to JavaScript. PhoneGap is a distribution of Apache Cordova. PhoneGap allows you to use standard web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for cross-platform development, avoiding each mobile platforms' native development language. Applications execute within wrappers targeted to each platform, and rely on standards-compliant API bindings to access each device's sensors, data, and network status.
NativeScript
NativeScript enables developers to build native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Universal while sharing the application code across the platforms. When building the application UI, developers use our libraries, which abstract the differences between the native platforms.
React Native
React Native enables you to build world-class application experiences on native platforms using a consistent developer experience based on JavaScript and React. The focus of React Native is on developer efficiency across all the platforms you care about - learn once, write anywhere. Facebook uses React Native in multiple production apps and will continue investing in React Native.
Flutter
Flutter is a mobile app SDK to help developers and designers build modern mobile apps for iOS and Android.
VoltBuilder
It is a SaaS to make Android and iOS native apps from Single Page Apps.is designed to be a modern implementation of PhoneGap Build.
See all alternatives